Well. ‘A break’ wasn’t supposed to last that long. But here we go again.

Violet is in shock over killing Jack, because while you can intellectually know that it’s inevitable, actually doing it is something else. They’ve won the little war game and everyone runs around being happy and congratulating Violet on getting a signet while she stands there just thinking ‘I’ve killed someone’ over and over.

And, on the one hand, this is Stupid Murder Death College, so the kids are going to be somewhat inured to death, but even so this is very cavalier. Also, Liam got stabbed and almost died, but everyone is still celebrating. I wonder if the book wants to show Violet as particularly sensitive, and the only way to contrast that is to make everyone else chill, which accidentally turns them into weird-ass monsters.

Xaden is, apparently, the only to realize Violet is having a hard time right now and tries to console her.

The world is a better place without Barlow in it. {…] But what you did will save countless others. He was nothing more than a bully and was only going to get worse as he grew more powerful.

Okay, but…this is all true. And it was also extremely evident from the start. Does the Stupid Murder Death College not have a way to drum these people out? Functional militaries can discharge people who are an obvious danger to the unit. And sure, some will be kept because they are borderline and there’s a war on and we need bodies, but in Stupid Murder Death College specifically we know there are too many people relative to the dragons, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

Stupid Murder Death College puts way too much emphasis on the ‘Stupid Murder Death’ and not enough on the military part.

Violet seems upset by not just the fact that she killed, but the fact that her special magic is so violent. The belief in this world is that the special magic is in part shaped by the rider’s personality/soul, and she’s struggling with what it means about her soul that her power is so purely death-dealing. Dain tries to say she doesn’t need to use her power if she doesn’t want to, and Xaden tells him to stop coddling Violet. For once I agree, because lol like anyone is going to let her quit now.

I think this is the first time in this book that I’m feeling about all the characters what the text wants me to feel about all the characters.

Later on, Violet is in her room throwing knives at a target’s head with an attitude of “well why should I bother doing anything but kill shots now.” I really like her in this chapter. So many emotions. And so much of that nonsense kind of thought process that feels so normal when you’re just drowning in feels.

Xaden comes over to attempt to console her, and it ends up being sex. I’ll spare you the details and just say it’s perfectly serviceable romance-book level banging. They both end up tossing shadows and lightning out, and of course they break several pieces of furniture which I find suspect, but what are you going to do. Standard romance book stuff.

Afterwards, sitting around shirtless, she notices that Xaden has a lot of little scars on his back to go along with his dragon relic. She asks him about it, and it turns out there’s 107 scars, one for each of the kids of traitors. Xaden says that he’s the reason they’re all in the dragon corps, because he took personal responsibility for their loyalty. If any one of the kids turns traitor, Xaden dies. Unclear if this happens by magic or by humans.

The next day, Violet finds out she’s off library duty because fire + paper = bad. Instead she’s out with Professor Carr to start working on her powers. Although, once again, ‘Professor’ is a pretty loose term since all that happens is they go out far from people and he says “IDK, just do ligtening.” This school suuuuuucks.

She figures out she has to be in a heightened emotional state to make it work, which seems to be her constant state of being, and also her aim sucks. But we’ll have to practice later, because that’s the end of the chapter.

Later, Xaden and Violet are in her room, awkward on account of all the banging that happened before. They start to clean up the room together and she randomly says “tell me something real.”

“Like what?”

“IDK, tell me where you were this one specific time that you snuck out once.”

And he tells her it was a place called Athebyne, which comes up later, and there is literally no reason for this to exist. Like, yes, it’s important later, but we already established that Xaden and his marked friends sneak out sometimes and it’s hush-hush, we don’t also need a totally random aside in order to get the name because the name adds nothing. When we get to Athebyne later, she could have just as easily gone “oh, this is where you were sneaking to” instead of “oh, so this is that place name you mentioned but told me not to ask about.”

I guess you could argue that it’s part of a Rule of Threes (establish, reminder, payoff) but as a reminder this sucks. It’s the orange allergy thing. Feels like it was shoved in during an edit round. There could have been a narratively relevant moment where he has to sneak off again and let that serve as the reminder.

They also find the book of fables that Mira gave her during the reward visit. A note from her dad falls out. It’s all cryptic and talks about history.

Remember that folklore is passed from one generation to the next to teach us about our past. If we lose it, we lose the links to our past. It only takes one desperate generation to change history – or even erase it.

Well, gee golly gosh, I wonder what could have happened.

But the characters don’t know they’re in a book so they shrug it off as being just weird. We get a summary of the fables, which are about venin and wyvern (corrupted versions of dragonriders and dragons) and different types of bad magic.

Then they get to the squiggley relationship talk. Xaden does the whole “oh, I’m so dark, you don’t know how bad I am, don’t fall for me” nonsense that he has never once lived up to in this book. Sorry, I’m still not impressed by him evilly standing around. Violet takes the very reasonable approach of “if that’s your boundary, fine, but in that case no more sex because I don’t do well at separating sex and emotions.”

Xaden tries to go “what, no, we can totally bang without getting involved, you don’t understand, I’m really bad there’s no way you’d fall for me, let’s just more sex please?” Violet stands firm.

Good girl, Violet!

He agrees, but is clearly unhappy, so we get to continue on with our sexual tension. Can’t give that up, after all.

We find out there’s going to be a party because the King is coming to visit. But until then, we get some more Battle Brief, which is still the only class we get to see. Also the only thing that even vaguely resembles teaching.

It takes at least a full company of infantry to make up for the loss of one rider.

Yeaaaah I’m calling bullshit. I’m not even going to justify myself, just bullshit.

The rest of the page time before the Kingly party is just Violet and Xaden being sexual tension at each other and neither one of them being happy about it. But later that night the kids are getting ready, and apparently the dress uniforms are mix and match so the kids can all pick from a variety of fancy tops and bottoms.

I went with the high neck, sleeveless option to hide my armor and the flowing, floor-length skirt with the slit up the thigh, which Devera told me was for mobility in case of an attack.

More bullshit. Just say you want to wear a fancy skirt. It’s fine. No one’s dress uniforms are designed for the possibility of an attack.

They get to the party, and Liam is still playing bodyguard (don’t worry, he’s fully recovered from the stabbity-stab). Violet notices that he’s getting a lot of dark looks from the non-dragonriders and then realizes why, and basically begs him to leave. He refuses, because he’s a big ol teddy bear and I love him. Violet’s mom comes over, King in tow, and they make small talk.

Aaand that’s it. That’s all the party we get. Violet and Liam slink away right after that, and then Violet splits to go find Xaden. He’s moping while sitting on the Stupid Death Bridge.

Worst party scene in a fantasy book ever.